Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Monday March 15, 1999 @05:09AM
from the I-sue-you-you-sue-me dept.

Numeric writes "
Motorola sues Intel. Apparently, Intel is attempting to herd former Motorola employees to work for them. Motorola is greatly concerned that those employees will be disclosing their knowledge of the PowerPC chip design. "

Well, I don't know about Texas law, but in California non-compete contracts/clauses are illegal. This doesn't stop companies from including them in NDAs (the theory being that it'll cost too much money to fight it even though you'll win), but they're neither legal nor enforcable here.

Actually, many standard components of NDAs aren't legal. I've often wondered why companies aren't held liable for requiring employees to sign contracts that include illegal clauses; I suppose, though, that would mean that people wouldn't have to sue to enforce their rights. Then what would all those lawyers do for a living?

Just because Motorola can be _idiots_ doesn't change the fact that Intel desperately wants (out of their famous paranoia) to obliterate _all_ choice in the computer hardware industry. CPUs, chipsets, video cards, all will be Intel, or they might have to be _afraid_ or something. Should they manage to kill Motorola, AMD et al ad infinitum, they'll only turn to making it even more impossible for anybody to _ever_ produce an alternative. What does Motorola's competence have to do with that? Though, interestingly, even my 195Mhz 604e does 400 bogomips, evidently the same bogomark as a PII 300 and beating an Ultrasparc. Wheee:) The point is, Intel are ready and willing to fight as dirty as they can get away with and even a little (or a lot) more than that. They'll happily pull the MS ploy of buying people just to make sure other companies can't have them. They're probably cooking their books too since they're so paranoid and desperate. I know some insiders at Intel, and they are not _capable_ of doing good work anymore- the politics are absolutely disturbing there- all they're good for is killing other companies at this point. They should be blown out of the way so others can start developing products unmolested. They will _not_ be blown out of the way, probably. However, they must not be allowed to choke the industry to death, OK? Tell me how many chipsets and video cards AMD makes. Intel is big enough to begin strangling the rest of the industry, and that's just what they're trying to do- the fact that they can't maintain a work environment that is conducive to innovation, the fact that they are running out of steam and facing a collapse of their effectiveness, is not relevant. They'll still be able to use their resources as a destructive weapon for some time, and that's what they mustn't be allowed to do. Where is it written that 'among these rights to be held self-evident is the right of Intel to buy out, sabotage, steal from or otherwise obliterate any smaller competitor who frightens them by producing a better product?'

Intel is obviously hitting a brick wall with their legacy CISC technology. MERCED has been delayed once again, and their Pentium III is no better than the PII with some tweaks.

So what do they do? Steal from others, of course. Intel has learned lessons from Microsoft very well - "Money talks, and competition be damned. If we can't make it ourselves we will just buy out their engineer talent."

There is nothing wrong with Mac hardware. It is superior or at least equal to PC hardware. The problem people seem to have is with the OS. It doesn't have the advanced features that a modern OS should have. I purchased a G3/300 (beige) about 3 weeks ago and have not crashed out of the OS once. This is true. The buzzwords are all fine and dandy (protected memory, pre-emptive multitasking, etc.) but the true measure of an OS is real-world stability. That also depends on the programs being run on it too. Developers may have issues programming for MacOS but that will change soon with the intro of MacOS X. Sure, I know its so-called "vaporware" at this time, so spare me your vapor accusations. Linux support is pretty much vapor with the big PC manufacturers also but its not being held against it.

I do aree with you on that the G4 will be a rocking chip. But the real G4 too look out for will be the 2nd revision of the chip. It will have a 128bit cache bus and 128bit MaxBus that will provide the most thruput of any chip that will be out there at the time. Look for it in late 99. It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.

Thats got to be one of the most ignorant remarks ever posted on/. You, my friend, are greatly mistaken. Mac users are not morons and the G3 is certainly getting results in the market. Get a clue.Sheesh...you give AC's a bad name. It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.

You are right about the boneheaded move they did by moving to NT on Intel. That was just stupid. It was a reaction to their losing thier MacOS license. This is what kids do...They're worse than Apple was between 1990-96 It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.

I do think PPC are far superior to anything that Intel has ever (or probably will ever) produce.

BUT - Gee, losing all their employees to Intel? Wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Motorola ditched their OWN CPU for internal use and replaced all their PCs with Intel-inside Dell computers. Wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that PowerPC chips aren't selling to a very big market, because Morotola doesn't market them for shit. (remember the BEST PowerPC chip commercials you ever saw? they were from Apple, not Motorola. Moto just sits on their asses making chips.)

Motorola's shit is definately not in the same locality. They make a great CPU, but as far as other matters of business go - they seem to have their sphincters around their necks.

It was probably looked over by a different "author" (or even the same one who changed his/her mind) and discarded the first time around. Don't take it personally (or do take it personally; I don't care..)

I never was totally impressed with Motorola. I bought a voice modem, the modem part broke, sent it in, they took off the external 'voice' jacks, put in the wrong firmware. when a lightning broke it a second time, I asked them to put the jacks back in, to no avail.

The 68xx chips weren't all that wonderful, but the included dev environment was nice.

I do agree on your "title" but strongly disagree when you say motorola's Processor are lame. they aren't whats make them look lame is what geos with hem (ie Mac Machines, with crappy macos and crappy-buggy Intel chipsets on the MB). Other bad thing for the Power PC has a general use chip is that it is too strongly thight to IBM and Apple (remmember the wars Apple/ibm in the 80's). The chip itself IS great.....

Have you ever tried to do asm on an Intel Chip and on a Motorola one ? intel sux , you are restricted on the use of the registers, their number is limited.

The future of the mainstream PC is tied to the x86 architecture which imho has reached is limits. And changing to IA 64 is going to be painfull so Intel seeks people with experience in that Field Mot's employees. ALso ALtivec to be released with the G4's chip rocks a lot more than MMX or Katmai so Intel wants to get that technology to say Hey look what we've done.....

Uh, this was announced last summer, 6/98. IBM and Motorola will still colaborate on PowerPC design with different chips for different tasks. According to news reports, both Motorola and IBM chips will still be compatible, except Mot's will have Altivec and IBM won't. Personally, I think the specialized chip concept is rather cool. Altivec for games and multimedia apps, and 64-bit power for high-end computation and server work. Just my 2.

Scott Banwart --- Better to stay silent, and let people think you're an idiot than to open your mouth and

In most jobs of a competative nature, not only are NDA's enforced, but also Non Compete agreements....This prevents a employee from taking job with competing firm/company for a specified period of time, usually 2-3 years. Perfectly legal, and enforcable. Considered espionage by most, it is perfectly reasonable. I am not saying I like it, since I get really pissed when someone tells me I can't do something. But if a company pays to train and educate, and the employee posesses sensitive knowledge, I can see where that would be a problem.

Oh yeah, IBM and Motorola are still tight, and actually seem to be getting along better now....

this lawsuit IS ridonkuless. it is based on people not being able to change jobs. if intelluctual property is stolen that is another issue (and should be addressed accordingly), but to say that former moto employees can't go work for intel is craziness.

Intel is very powerful. The easiest way to criple a competitor is to raid R&D. They benefit by acquiring expertise on competing technology and by removing key employers from their competitors.

M$ gutted several mac companies several years ago. It is a very effective practice.

The PowerPC is a well engineered chip and it is to our benifit that it continues to evolve. Competition is good in the marketplace. And besides, as programmers you have to appreciate a well designed piece of equipment.

You have your brand new start up firm. You and one employee(to keep it simple). Lets call this little company Transmetta for the sake of argument. You come up with this brillient idea, that will totally reshape the industry(lets call it a quantum CPU). You tell your one employee all the details. Intel finds out your working on something big. Intel offers this employee millions in benifits and pay. He defects. How much do you trust your quantum CPU secrets with the only othere person in the world hwo knows about them, whos now over at Intel???

Ive signed non-compete agreements in the past, and i feel its perfectly allright. Ive know a lot of sensitive information and business practices that would sure help some compettitors, but look at the company you would be leaving, and how much time and resources were poured into this stuff, and it seems only fair. You may not even think about it when you go to another company. You know all this stuff, and it will eventually come out or affect your work. I think 2-3years is good.

This type of lawsuit is ridiculous. If someone wants to move from Motorola to Intel, they should be able to without hinderance.

This whole notion of "raiding" as an "illegal practice" is as ridiculous as NDAs in general. I've never heard of an NDA being succesfully enforced in court - its just legal mumbo jumbo to protect bad companies from competition.

Motorola should just bite the bullet and admit that Intel has completely killed them in the general CPU market segment - with inferior products at that. Even IBM has dumped Motorola as a partner.

Motorola used to be a blue chip company that was a sure winner. Now they're just lame. Nokia is killing them in cell phones, and Intel is destroying them in ICs.

uh, since when did ibm dump moto?inferiour? is that why it has 4 times the number of registers? yes, i know risc on the inside (remember when all the x86 zealots said risc sucked?) and it has more internal registers, but that's almost as slow as cache; the compiler can still only control what's in 8 of them, the rest are up to the cpu's own cache like use of the remaining registers. if that's not enough, just look at the x86 mem arch. enjoy shift registers?

It's called a 'Moratorium' when you cannot work for a competitor for a certain amount of time..

And they are most definitely legal. However:

They MUST be accompanied by compensation for the moratorium. That is, if you cannot work for another company in your field for a year after you leave Foo.com, then Foo.com MUST compensate you during that time. In other words, if they don't pay, you don't have to play. The compensation can take the form of anything, as long as it is worth the price you will pay for being out of the market for a year, and potentially not even able to work for that time.

I have refused jobs based on the NDA. It's always the same story.. "It's just standard procedure. Everybody signs them.".. "Really? Well, I'm sorry, but if I have to sign this document, I'm not working for you. Thanks."

A company that is so paranoid that it needs to propagate unenforcable NDA's to make themselves feel better, is a company I would avoid working for.. long term, anyway.;-)

Is anyone else bothered by the intellectual property clauses as well? What I do at home is my own property, as far as I am concerned. I have refused to sign docs that had those sorts of things in them as well. "We own everything that you do that relates to our business." Umm... what? What's that? I don't think so, bubba.

I have no problem handing over things that I do with company resources, and on company time. Those are rightfully theirs. But if I do it at home, on my own time, nope. And I won't sign a document that says otherwise. If that costs me a job or two, so be it. I'm more than happy to fill the time with other work.

Is it Motorola or IBM? I always thought it was Motorola, but anytime I see PowerPC used, there's always a disclaimer about "PowerPC is a registered trademark of International Business Machines" (look at the bottom of LinuxPPC [linuxppc.org]'s home page, for example).

Does Motorola just manufacture the chip that IBM designs?

I never hear anything about Motorola. With the speed of the G3/G4, and with AltiVec too, I would think more people would be talking about them... but I never hear anything. I remember seeing ads for their "DigitalDNA [digitaldna.com]" a couple of months ago, but that's about it.

Microsoft did the same thing to Borland Corps C++ people. Offering them fancy trips and large signing bonuses and placing them illegally in the same positions in Microsoft. Basically brain drained borland.... It it illegal as most companies make employees sign agreements they won't take the same position in a competing firm...